Smashing your partner's game console is not a solution

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Monday, August 06, 2012
EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Rob Savillo

I looked for an acceptable video to embed in this post, but the amount of vitriol, hate, and sexism surrounding the issue isn't appropriate. But Tyffany offers some (depressingly rare) sane and levelheaded advice for couples where one partner becomes frustrated over the other's gaming habits.

I wear makeup. If my fiancé went in the bathroom and snapped my eyeliner pencil, I’d be fuming. But here I am watching these YouTube videos of girls smashing their boyfriends' consoles out of anger. All for different reasons: They don’t get enough attention, that’s all he does with his free time...whatever.

A lot of women I know, especially ones in similar situations, wear makeup. I'm sure that these girls would be very angry if their boyfriends had busted their eyeshadow palettes or shredded their clothes. That’s an equivalent -- not even just to men. If anyone harmed my systems, I’d break every one of their limbs and cut them with spoons. Yes, I said with spoons.

You wouldn’t want such destruction to come to what you consider valuable. What could be going on here?

 

The thought occurs to me that if you don’t like your significant other's behavior, why not just leave? You can’t change them, and smashing their belongings is just going to make them angry. And if you don’t expect them to replace their consoles, you’re nuts. So now not only does your beloved not trust you with their things, they're feeling angry, replacing what you smashed, and returning to the behavior that you didn’t like to begin with. Obviously,  this isn't a match made in heaven.

Smashing a $200 to $400 system doesn’t prove anything. It proves that you have a temper and that you can’t control it. That you’re childish. That you’re petty. It’s causing a problem in your relationship rather than working on the existing one that even caused you to consider such an extreme.

Some days, even being a gamer myself, I get frustrated when I want to go out and my fiancé wants to stay in and play. But a working relationship is a compromise of those times.

I want to run errands, but we’ll do half of them today and half tomorrow so that he has more game time before work. Done. He wants to go to the movies,  but I want to beat the final boss. We go to the movies the next day, then. Done.

Half of the time, your significant other isn't even aware that they’re playing as much as they are. If a game is really good, you tend to lose yourself in it. Sitting down next to your beloved and annoying them into a conversation about the issue is a much better solution than smashing the game console, and their irritation with you will be so much shorter-lived.

Now, I’m aware that some of these videos are fakes -- staged to garner attention since smashing consoles seems to be a fad. That still doesn’t make it OK.

I’ve also seen a couple videos of parents smashing their children's consoles for refusing to go outside, not stopping playing...whatever the case may be. In what world do adults exist where they shouldn’t be able to think of a better punishment than smashing their childern's valued possessions?

Firstly, this teaches the kid this is OK behavior for their own offspring: "Well, when I was bad, my dad did it to me, so it’s OK." Secondly, this teaches the kid that the parent has no self-restraint.

How about these parents just wait 'til the child goes to school, hide the system, and offer an ultimatum to getting it back. That's significantly better than smashing the console, which, by the way, will probably wreck the hard drive and all the game saves. Now these parents are teaching their kids that all hard work can be destroyed, so why bother? It’s all psychology -- all footprints in the child’s mind that will come into play somewhere later in that kid’s life.

Control your temper. You can find better solutions to "gaming problems" than destroying a valuable system.

 
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Comments (9)
5211_100857553261324_100000112393199_12455_5449490_n
August 06, 2012

>>"In what world do adults exist where they shouldn’t be able to think of a better punishment than smashing their childern's valued possessions?"

 

Educated guess?  The world where the parent was the one who bought the toys in the first place.  Looking back, honestly, I'm surprised my dad didn't smash more of my crap growing up; as it turned out, taking the power cords away was a MUCH less messy way of disabling my enjoyment of them, but I could definitely see where a frustrated parent would be coming from should they chose to go down that path.

 

They paid for something, and maybe the kid's being an unruly brat.  Maybe the kid wants to play games more than do schoolwork, or play outside.  MAYBE the kid is completely out of line, and whereas getting spanked back in the day did the trick, this is now considered child abuse, so they went for the console instead.

 

Point being, if the child is upset at the destruction of "their" Nintendo, where words have failed, action may make the kid sit up and take notice.  "Oh man, he smashed it.  WHAT did I do to make this happen, and HOW should I avoid this in the future?"  I can guarantee you, a parent who smashes something they paid good money for isn't doing it for shits and giggles, and it's most assuredly not a first response for corrective action.

 

Some of these kids are EVIL, and I think soft parenting's given birth to a new breed of "invincible" kids who are allowed to get away with anything and say/do whatever they want because parents APPEAR to be afraid of reprecussions of their actions... So, yes.  If my kid was being completely unreasonable, and taking their Xbox away wasn't accomplishing anything, I would certainly threaten to destroy it... and if need be, back up words with action.  Not because I get a thrill out of breaking the shit out of videogames, but because sometimes being a parent means being the bad guy, if it means your kid has a better understanding of action/reaction.  

 

...Eat my yogurt, I blow up the Wii.  Home Terrorism has never been so fun.

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August 06, 2012

I definitely understand your viewpoint, and the video Sam posted was actually an inspiration to the parental section. However, I feel that the youtube dad was more justified than some of these parents; it sounds as though he's made attempt after attempt to work with her and she's still being unruly. My view however was more aimed toward the parents who use it as a first or second resort. Personally, when I was a kid, if my mom took my gameboy I was a saint until I got it back. If I acted up, she took it again. Lessons learned. Kids today are much more spoiled, and maybe smashing it could be a last desperate attempt. But it should never be a first, or second, or even third choice.

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August 06, 2012

I'd be happy if she smashed my windshield instead of my consoles ; )

Going back to memory lane, I remember my father took my Super Nintendo away from me. It was my birthday and I received a fortunate gift: a new game (Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball).

But he milked the moment -- he took it away for a month to be exact. It sucked. I had to wait. I can't remember what I did, but I knew it was something stupid and wrong.

It was a lesson learned, and it was for my own good. My behavior changed simply because I knew the repercussion.

The Super Nintendo was my holy grail at the time, and I did anything to get it back (and, most importantly, it improved from repeating misbehaved actions).

Hey, I wasn't a saint, but it worked for me.

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August 06, 2012

For me it was my gameboy color; I was glued at the hip to that thing. I think the problem is that children in this generation are very spoiled. I never had a phone at 10. If you don't today, you're considered "behind". Who wants their kid picked on? So the parent gives in.

As for spousal, do all the damage you want to my car it has insurance and I could use a paint job. haha. Just don't touch my consoles. :)

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August 06, 2012

I completely agree with your last points -- it's all psychological indeed. I love how so many other (assumed) parents flock to support these device smashers and praise them for their "quality" parenting, when in reality they're using their authority as a parent to cross the line themselves. The parent is supposed to be more mature and level-headed than this. Otherwise, you have a man/woman child trying to coach an even unrulier child, and it'll only get worse with those methods.

Anyhow, great read. I've heard way too many horror stories from friends having their games and consoles sold or tossed by angry partners. Not the same as smashing but still just as scary in my eyes.

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August 07, 2012

Thanks. :) I've had a few friends tell me the sold story too... at least the console may end up with a good home? But still so far from okay. All the save data! D:

230340423
August 08, 2012

Great first post, Tyffany. Welcome to the 'Mob!

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August 09, 2012

Thank you :)

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